Area on Mars to be named after famous Danish scientist

Jens Martin Knudsen was instrumental in discovering the mineral composition of the Red Planet’s red soil

Shifa Rahaman

NASA has just announced that an area on Mars will be named after the well-known Danish physicist Jens Martin Knudsen.

Knudsen, who studied physics at the Niels Bohr Institute, got involved in research focusing on the question of whether or not the Red Planet contained water in the 1970s.

His special focus on Mars later earned him the title ‘Marsmanden’ (the Martian).

Knudsen Ridge
The area in question, Knudsen Ridge, is located near the Endeavour Crater, which is close to Mars’s equator.

Kundsen, whose work for NASA focused on studying the mineral properties of Mars’s soil, devised a magnetic experiment to collect particles of dust.

“NASA though the experiment was a really good idea, so the Danish research group at the Niels Bohr Institute delivered magnetic experiments for the Mars Pathfinder mission, launched in 1996,” said , Morten Bo Madsen, an associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute.

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